


Bloodson

by thebrightsingleones



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebrightsingleones/pseuds/thebrightsingleones
Summary: "It's in his design to paint his fingers red and draw his future with it."
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	Bloodson

**Author's Note:**

> I was annoyed at the treatment of Damian in canon, so this is a little meta.

The cape wraps around his neck like a collar. Nothing but a fighting animal, too young to mercifully kill, not enough tools available to be re-educated. He wanders the world both hands tied behind his back. Currently, mercifully his world is small, full of places to hide like a scurrying rat. So people can’t see the red up to his elbows, covering his face, poisoning his eyes.

He didn't ask for any of it, for the responsibility of his brother's hand me downs, for the blood that runs through his veins, for being born. But that doesn't make him any special.

There's a scar in the middle of his chest for deeds paid. There's a scar in the middle of his back because he’s a metaphor for betrayal made literal. Five thousand sunsets he's lived through but today the sky gives way into the night terrible and red. He wonders once more if there is any consolation in redemption. If changing his ways will truly cleanse his soul away from the suffering and the pain and the loss he's caused.

He is an agent of destiny, a sword in the dark, a match that will set the world ablaze. There is no future where he is happy, his downfall is a universal constant. His rage a vehicle for destruction, his pride nothing but room for maniacal tyranny. It festers like puss coming out from the acne puberty has bestowed on him. The flaws in his character bloom underneath the pitying glances of the people around him.

_Poor child_ , they seem to say, _now prove me right_. I am only a child, he wants to scream, but it isn’t quite the whole truth. He asks for forgiveness when the scum of the earth are encouraged to ask for help.

Something squeaks inside his chest _. Help me._

But the only answer is the R across his heart and the ice in his father's eyes.

_Want me._

But he is nothing but blood, a mistake, an unfortunate surprise. It’s in between his fingers terrible like the sky with the slowly setting sun, like the armor splayed across his chest, sticky and smelling of copper.

_I didn't mean it_ , he could say to defend himself. _I panicked_. But it won't matter, he should be beyond panic, in the long and straightforward path to Goodness with every breath he takes for the next seven decades of his life. He must fight for it against a universe that made him exactly as he is, that killed him and made him breathe again because his father needed it.

Damian can't keep blood in the body of the man dying beneath just as he can’t stop the sun from going down. As he couldn't keep him from getting shot and he couldn't catch the people who did it. And he doesn't even know his name even though the man keeps half whimpering the name of a woman like Damian's personal nightmare soundtrack.

He'll hear it when he's just about to fall asleep. Will remember the terrified eyes. Will know that his only reaction is to want to be in the place of a dying man. Not to save his life but to save himself from the disappointed looks in his family's eyes.

They'll say that they've all lost people before, that they have all made mistakes. But their mistakes are just honest misjudgments while he will always have that thing at the back of his mind whispering that he wanted it to happen. That it's not that he couldn't move fast enough but that he didn't want to. That it had been too long since another person's blood adorned his brow and the cruel awful monster inside him needed another hit. A little something to tide them over while he played house.

People get to redeem themselves, but Damian was born from serpent and bat. A beast, trained to attack and kill and rejoice at the sight of their victim. It's in his design to paint his fingers red and draw his future with it.

The man stops breathing and night falls. The blaring red of the ambulance is too late and he keeps pushing at the man's chest and tries to breathe for him even though it is pointless. Because his pants are squishy and it should be impossible but his socks feel as wet as if he'd stayed under the rain for hours. The paramedics take the man away swaddled in white and he hears them whisper about how young he is and that he'd been so brave. But then there's that pity again when one of them nears him with a shock blanket. _I killed him_ , he wants to say. _Lock me up, take me away_. Damian’s hands are trembling and his breath is short and the blood in his veins turns into slugging mud as the shadows around him move. The blanket he accepted falls to the ground. There is no comfort from what festers in him.

He’s unwilling to stay and see which shadow has come to sentence him today. Which fatal flaw shall be examined with the presence of all that he should be but isn't. What perfect soldier is going to descend from the rooftops? Deserving of the mantle, deserving of love.

So he goes back to the cave and washes away the deeds of the evening. Like he could ever scrub away his sins. And the pink-brown water swirls into the drain like it wasn't keeping a man alive earlier that night. And it goes into the sewer like vomit and shit and urine and it keeps people going but it's water and cells and universe dust. 

His dog sniffs at him before turning away, put off by the metallic smell still clinging to him. And he can't find his cat. And they're not his cat and his dogs in the same way that this is not his house and these are not his clothes because he's done nothing to deserve any of it but being born.

The only thing that is Damian's is the blood that courses through his veins, and that isn't much of anything, really.


End file.
